


a bit of a cad

by fanficcornerwriter19



Category: The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 02:43:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20538845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanficcornerwriter19/pseuds/fanficcornerwriter19
Summary: Something smells fishy about the events of seventeen years ago, and Cad's never been one to distrust his nose. So he moves into 33 Dunstan Road to find out what exactly happened the night the Dorian family was murdered.





	a bit of a cad

**Author's Note:**

> this is literally the most self-indulgent shit I've ever written. hope you enjoy it regardless.

Cad wasn’t exactly what one would expect, if one only had his nickname to go by. He wasn’t tall or short, but he was lithe, with stormy grey eyes that crackled with lightning when he was angry or when he was excited, and a shock of thick, slightly curly, translucent hair that the doctors had pronounced mousy brown upon his birth. He had thin, expressive eyebrows and hands and a prominent, somewhat upturned nose. He looked curious, which he was, and he looked gentle, which he wasn’t.

When Cad first got out of his tiny, loyal old black Fiat and hauled a big rolling suitcase brownish-grey with age and dust up the steps to Number 33 Dunstan Road while yelling at his sister over the phone, the neighbours knew he would call out cheerful greetings when out getting the post or cycling by, offer an umbrella politely if it was raining and he was at your bus station, and probably swear at his gardenias.

Not that he had gardenias.

Cad allowed himself one glimmering white smile as he trotted out of his house, hidden in grey windbreaker and thick black trousers with black boots on his small, sure feet. In the moonlight his windblown hair shone silver, and his dark lantern’s pencil-thin beam gleamed gold.

The lights were all out in any direction he looked. Adopting a distance-eating lope, he made his way up the hill, into the darkness, and toward the graveyard.

When the man Jack had tried this, he had knocked the garbage can he’d ‘borrowed’ over. Cad was lighter, thinner, and nimbler than the man Jack, but no more of a climber. He too had to ‘borrow’ a garbage can, and although he managed not to throw it off, it still gave a clatter like a clap of thunder when he launched off it and onto the wall where the lantern already sat. He winced.

_One. Two. Three. No commotion. _

He carefully dropped the lantern onto a bush, and then launched himself off the wall, hitting the overgrown patch with his shoulder and a _thump_. Cad tucked and rolled and sprang to his feet, grabbing his lantern. The wind abruptly picked up –- he could feel the wind-chill even from here. He raised his lantern, and then felt foolish.

This was a _graveyard. _There would be residents. Cad was neither a born ghost-seer nor someone with any other gift that would allow them to see ghosts. Nevertheless…

The lantern creaked as he self-consciously stepped forward. “Hullo?” he called tentatively, then felt even stupider. “Er. Right. Good evening, everyone. Don’t mind me. I’m just having a poke.” He flashed a nervous smile.

“Bod?”

Cad _jumped. _

He yelped too, but he wouldn’t admit to doing something so undignified. Besides, his yelp sounded stupid, and he tried not to humiliate himself, as a rule. He turned around.

The man whose voice sounded made of black silk and tinted slightly with surprise looked to be woven out of shadow and moonbeams. Curious, Cad sniffed the air; it smelled of damp grass, and old stone, and weeds, and animals and their droppings. The man smelled of crisp clean cloth and something much darker, but nothing more. There was no scent of faint man-musk, the human-y, living smell people get by just being alive. And yet -– and yet Cad could see him.

He reached out and grabbed a fistful of the stranger’s impeccable black coat. He felt it; it was real. “Sorry,” said Cad, carefully. Stereotypes said nothing of which of the Other Folk lived exactly where. The most neutral, human question –- and yet one that demanded a true answer -– he could come up with was: “Are you the caretaker? I mean -– I’ve heard this place is a nature reserve.”

The stranger tilted his head ever so slightly. Was that disappointment – no, it couldn’t have been. “Am I? Certainly, in a manner of speaking.” His ivory fingers flickered over his keyring with a tinkle. “And yes, this graveyard was declared a nature reserve, oh, almost fifty years ago now.”

“I was having a look around,” said Cad, lamely, thumbing the hilt of his pocketknife nervously.

“With a dark lantern, past midnight?” said the stranger, almost reproachfully. His face was expressionless.

“I didn’t want anyone to be bothered!”

“The reserve is perfectly open during daylight hours, and I assure you, you would not be bothering anyone. Unlike breaking and entering in the early hours of the morning using a garbage can.” Cad began to feel as though he was being reprimanded by a teacher he respected, before blinking and shattering the thin film of persuasion on his mind. _Careful. _

“I’m sorry I interrupted you. I didn’t know it wasn’t still open.” He itched to get out; being waylaid by one of the Other Folk in a dark graveyard was definitely not on his Top 10 list of Safe Places To Be.

“It is most certainly not, I’m afraid. Come back later in the morning.”

“Then why are you still here?”

“I live here,” said the stranger, simply, and Cad curled in on himself even more. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? It made the most perfect sense. “And unfortunately for me this night, I am a light sleeper.” The keyring jingled as he selected one of the keys and began walking. “Follow me.”

Cad followed him.

“If you wanted to see the chapel,” said the stranger, without looking back, “you could have asked specially. I’m sure they make exceptions for that sort of thing. There was and is no need to simply break in and try to see it at night. If you ask me, there’s much more to see in it during the day.”

Cad wrinkled his wolfish nose and thought.

“I’ve heard that most of the officials are lenient with those who wish to research the history of the graveyard and by extension the Old Town. If I remember right, they abolished the fee a few years ago, so money should be no object. I have no problems with people asking to come in and see the chapel, provided they do it in a timely manner and have their paperwork in order.”

It was the hollow clang of the key sliding home that shook Cad out of his reverie. He blinked a few times, smashing the hold on his mind to pieces and slowly awakening his anger. This was definitely one of the Other Folk. He might have to play along.

“I would be happy to show you around, should you come back tomorrow morning.” The stranger opened the side gate with a flourish. “Delighted to have made your acquaintance, and I trust your sleep schedule will suffer no more.” Cad felt the thought try to sink into his mind, and tried not to grin. It might have worked when he was fifteen, or sixteen. It no longer did and hadn’t worked since the eve of his seventeenth birthday.

“Forgive me for asking,” because Nan had always impressed the importance of politeness to the Other Folk, “but who exactly _are _you?”

“I am the caretaker of the graveyard.”

“No, no.” Cad managed an innocent smile and held out his hand, palm up. “Would you be so kind as to give me your name?”

For a moment, they simply stared at each other, and then the stranger laughed, a strange, dark chuckle that sent the shadows dancing. “Very clever, young man. Where did you learn that trick?”

Cad ignored the question. “I’m glad you thought so. Who _are _you? And what -– or who –- is Bod?” From the way the stranger started -– if a movement so miniscule and quick could be called starting -– he knew he was onto something. _Bod _was a name Cad now knew, and a name that evidently meant something –- and perhaps more than something -– to the stranger in front of him.

He bared his teeth; it was barely a smile. He had all he needed, and he needn’t do it all tonight. He had a feeling the stranger was connected to the child, and he was going to find out how.

* * *

This time, Cad was there, waiting by the graveyard gates, by sunset. He had a feeling he knew what kind of Other the stranger was, and he also had the feeling that, unlike with others of his kind, patience and courtesy were the way to wear down this Guardian of the Graveyard. The wind tugged at his short hair, and probably not just the wind. Cad just hoped he was in a place the stranger would see him.

He did.

“You.”

“Me,” said Cad agreeably. He wouldn’t say anything about the chapel, not tonight. The stranger wouldn’t either, not if Cad had read him right, and he read almost everyone right. “You’re the Guardian of the Graveyard.”

“I am.”

“_This_ graveyard. Not the newer one.”

“No.” The stranger drifted over to where he was sitting.

“Do you know what happened in the town down the hill seventeen years ago, then?”

“I’m afraid not.” The stranger’s face was as expressionless as before.

The next night:

“You.”

“Me.” Cad crossed his legs and looked at him expectantly. “You’re the Guardian of the Graveyard.”

“I am.”

“Why?”

The stranger didn’t answer.

The night after that:

“You.”

“Me,” said Cad cheerfully. “Are you going out to eat?”

“Am I? I suppose so.” The stranger unlocked the side gate and stepped through, locking it behind him. His ivory features were clearly outlined against the twilight sky.

“Mightn’t I tag along?”

The stranger halted and turned back to look at him, eyes as unreadable as pools of water in a cave at midnight. “No.” There was a shifting of shadows, a small explosion of velvet darkness, and the guardian of the graveyard was gone.

Night number five:

“You.”

“Me. Look, this is getting a bit old, so I’m going to get to the point.” Cad canted his head. “I don’t think you’re the guardian of the graveyard, not really. You’re the guardian –- or you _were _the guardian -– of something else, something that belonged in the graveyard. I don’t think it does now, though, so why are you still here?”

The stranger looked at him, ivory face thrown into sharp relief by the fading light. Cad stared back at him, and realised he couldn’t tell what colour his eyes were. He waited.

Then came the swirl of shadow, and Cad sighed.

The night after that:

“You.”

“Me.”

“You are rather determined, aren’t you?”

“So they tell me.” Cad smiled, showing his sharp white teeth. “A _wolfish_ sort of tenacity.”

“Is it?” the stranger murmured, drawing close enough that Cad was bothered by the lack of smell about him. It wasn’t _right, _him looking so much like a human while smelling so different from one. Then again, it wasn’t right that Cad could stay here for hours and listen to the motions of the -– pardoning the expression –- life of the graveyard, told to him solely by his nose.

“If you get my meaning.”

“I rather think I have,” said the stranger crisply. “And I thought you would know what this graveyard is. You seem like a smart young man.”

“I’m not interested in that,” said Cad impatiently. He did know what this graveyard was, to his kind. What he wanted to know was something else. And he was quite open to compliments in the human world, the living world, but he wasn’t there now. “That’s not what I came here for.”

“Then what did you come here for?”

“Will you hear it?”

“That is why I asked you, yes.”

Cad studied him for a second, then decided he would bite. “Tell me your name first.”

The stranger gave a put-upon sigh, drawing still closer. “You may call me Silas.”

“And I’m Cad,” said Cad.

They looked at each other, Cad and Silas, and they silently came to an understanding that involved neither of their gifts of persuasion; after all, those worked on the living and the human, and while Cad was unquestionably alive, even to his own nose, he was most certainly not human.

“And now your purpose?”

“There was a murder in the town, about seventeen years ago. Three people were killed: Ronald, Carlotta, and Misty Dorian. I came to find out what happened to the youngest.”

“The youngest?” Silas frowned. “I don’t recall there being a _second _Dorian child. Are you quite certain, young man, that there was another?”

“I know what you’re doing,” said Cad stubbornly. “Stop it.”

Silas stopped.

“My name is _Cad, _and I _know _there was a baby. He was one year old. He could walk, and he _would _walk. He would scream and scream if anyone tried to pick him up and take him anywhere until they put him down.” Cad’s face was serious, his grey eyes flashing. “The newspapers named every Dorian except the baby. They don’t even mention him. The police abandoned the investigation. Everyone I talked to in the town barely remembers the family, and they don’t remember the baby at all.”

“That would make sense. If he was one year old I can’t imagine he had a very distinct personality.”

“No, not that. They don’t remember he _existed._” Cad scowled. “Even my family thinks there were only three Dorians, and my dad is Ronald Dorian’s brother. There’s something very wrong going on and I want to know what. I was checking out that chapel, over there,” he pointed in the approximate direction of the chapel, where the damp smell of mildew still drifted, “because it seems like the best place to hide a kid.”

Silas gave a low hum.

“Stop that!”

Silas stopped.

“You’re involved, aren’t you.”

Silence.

“Goddammit.”

“There really is no need for that type of language.” Silas, however, sounded more than a tad chagrined.

“Well then,” Cad said balefully, “are you going to give me what I want or am I going to have to tear it out of you?” His fingertips itched. He didn’t imagine it would be fun, for either of them, but he wasn’t known as Cad for nothing.

“No need for threats.” Silas sounded mildly appalled. “There is, however, a price.”

“Of course there is. So tell me, Child of the Night, what do your kind charge for a waste of breath these days?”

There was a smile in Silas’s voice when he replied. “I only need your promise, little Hound of God.”

Cad bristled. “No need to be so patronising. I’m a baby, not an idiot. What do you want?”

“That you will not disturb this graveyard or its inhabitants again, and that you will not do him any harm.”

“Him! So you know where he is?”

“Promise.”

“I promise that I shan’t knowingly and willingly do my cousin harm,” said Cad solemnly, staring Silas down. “I promise that this graveyard shall henceforth see no trouble from me.” He very carefully didn’t use the word ‘never’, or the word ‘swear’. One never knew.

“Your cousin?” said Silas, bemused. Cad shrugged.

“Very well. Follow me.” Silas drifted back into the graveyard and towards the chapel, the young man trailing behind him like a ghost.

“Your cousin’s family was murdered by the Jacks of All Trades,” said Silas, unlocking the padlock on the door of the chapel*. “They are a very old organisation. Why they targeted the Dorians that night I don’t know, nor, I suspect, does anyone else, now that everyone involved is dead.”

“Don’t patronise me,” said Cad again, sitting on the least rotted of the pews. “I know what they were. I want to know what happened.”

“I’m getting there, Cad. Somehow, the youngest of the Dorians escaped the man assigned to kill them –- Jack Frost, he was known as –- and came here, to the Graveyard. It so happened that I was there as well, and with the help of some of the residents was able to divert the man Jack’s attention in time. He did not kill the boy.”

“I suspected that.”

“Two of the ghosts of this graveyard, a couple named Owens, were the first ones to take the boy under their protection. They adopted him, and since he would need things only procured from the world outside the graveyard, I volunteered to care for him as well.”

Cad looked at him curiously, but said nothing.

“Though the ghost of his mother appeared to us long enough to alert us to the danger he was in, we were not able to learn his name. He was given a new one, Nobody Owens, and the Freedom of the Graveyard. This was where he grew up. This was where, three years ago, he killed the last of the Jacks of All Trades.”

Cad almost laughed when he heard the name, but was silent until Silas had finished the tale. “I heard about that. The Honour Guard killed the rest, didn’t they?”

“We did.”

“You’re _that _Silas.” It was a silly question, and so Silas didn’t answer.

“Did you make them forget?”

“It was necessary,” replied Silas. “If too many people asked questions about the boy -– as you yourself are now doing -– he would eventually have been found, and that would be no good for anyone.”

“So why did you let me remember?”

“For the very simple reason that I had no idea you existed. When the murder occurred, you were staying the night at an unrelated friend’s house for a project, and you were alone. Your youth likely contributed to your invisibility, and in the end I returned here without having convinced you your cousin did not exist. I was completely unaware of my mistake until you showed up a few nights ago.”

That made sense. Cad was suddenly very glad of this fact. “And where is Nobody now?”

“The last I saw of him was when he left the graveyard three years ago.”

That was _not _true. “Don’t lie to me. I promised.”

Silas gave a twitch that might have been one of annoyance, had he been the type of person to be so easily annoyed. “He was somewhere in South America last I saw him. I believe he was in a town in Mexico.”

“He’s Bod, isn’t he? And he looks like me. That’s why you said ‘Bod?’ when I came in.”

Silas had no need to say yes.

“Thank you for telling me.” Cad hardly knew what to do with himself. That was that, he supposed. Now that there was no purpose lending fire to his eyes and determination to his voice, he felt very keenly the presence of one of the Honour Guard. Under the heavy gaze of Silas, he suddenly seemed to himself to be very small and very young. “I’ll –- I’ll go. Sorry for bothering everyone. Tell them I’m sorry.”

“You may be sure I will pass on your apologies to any you might have disturbed.”

Cad paused at the door and turned back, eyes and hair glinting silver in the moonlight. “Will you stay here long, Silas of the Honour Guard?”

Silas’s face was the only thing he could make out, a light-greyish smudge in a black hole smelling of mildew and rotten wood. “Perhaps.”


End file.
